GUSTAVE PAPET

Though fashion may proscribe the patriarchal fashion of dedications, I
would ask you, brother and friend, to accept this of a tale which is not
new to you. I have drawn my materials in part from the cottages of our
Noire valley. May we live and die there, repeating every evening our
beloved invocation:

SANCTA SIMPLICITAS!

GEORGE SAND.





MAUPRAT


On the borders of La Marche and Berry, in the district known as
Varenne, which is naught but a vast moor studded with forests of oak
and chestnut, and in the most thickly wooded and wildest part of the
country, may be found, crouching within a ravine, a little ruined
chateau. The dilapidated turrets would not catch your eye until you were
about a hundred yards from the principal portcullis. The venerable trees
around and the scattered rocks above, bury it in everlasting obscurity;
and you would experience the greatest difficulty, even in broad
daylight, in crossing the deserted path leading to it, without stumbling
against the gnarled trunks and rubbish that bar every step. The name